U.S. seeks help in barring sale of Korean arms / Plutonium exports now the target

David E. Sanger, New York Times

Published 4:00 am, Monday, May 5, 2003

2003-05-05 04:00:00 PDT Crawford, Texas -- Tacitly acknowledging that North Korea may not be deterred from producing plutonium for nuclear weapons, President Bush is now trying to marshal international support for preventing the country from exporting nuclear material, U.S. and foreign officials say.

Bush discussed the new approach on Saturday with Australia's prime minister,

John Howard, after the two men were given a lengthy briefing at Bush's ranch by the chief U.S. negotiator with North Korea, James Kelly.

For a decade, the United States' declared policy has been that North Korea would be prevented, by any means necessary, from producing plutonium or highly enriched uranium. President Bill Clinton ordered the Pentagon to draw up plans for a military strike when the North threatened to begin production in 1994, but a nuclear freeze agreement was reached later that year.

Bush's new focus on blocking the sale of nuclear material by North Korea to countries or terrorist groups reflects the reality that U.S. intelligence officials cannot ascertain whether the reclusive nation was bluffing when it claimed last month that it had already reprocessed enough spent nuclear fuel to make many weapons.

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"The president said that the central worry is not what they've got, but where it goes," said an official familiar with the talks between Bush and Howard. "He's very pragmatic about it."

Secretary of State Colin Powell, in an appearance on the NBC News program "Meet the Press," insisted on Sunday that the administration's long-term goal was to force North Korea to dismantle all of its nuclear weapons programs. He vowed that it would get no international aid unless its government changed course.

But in recent interviews, several U.S. officials have said it is becoming clear that the policy Clinton described in 1994 is probably not sustainable anymore. Clinton had warned that if North Korea produced plutonium, the United States might seek to attack the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon.

Another official who has discussed the issue with Bush said that Bush's thinking was that the North Koreans "are looking to get us excited, to make us issue declarations. And his answer to them is 'You're hungry, and you can't eat plutonium.' "

Still, Bush's approach is a major gamble -- one that depends on superb intelligence about the North's efforts to sell its weapons.

U.S. officials have apparently been unable to identify the location of new facilities that they believe North Korea is building -- presumably underground -- to produce highly enriched uranium, a technology obtained largely from Pakistan in a trade for missiles.

Unlike the North's missiles, which can be seen by satellites as they are loaded into ships and sent to Iran, Syria, Yemen and other nations, weapons- grade nuclear material is easily transportable. Experts note that that material would be relatively easy to transport over North Korea's long border with China, part of the reason that Bush is working to engage the Chinese leadership in confronting North Korea about its nuclear program.

"It's a fantasy to think you can put a hermetic seal around North Korea and keep them from getting a grapefruit-sized piece of plutonium out of the country," Ashton B. Carter, a Harvard professor who worked on Korea issues in the Clinton administration, said on Sunday. "To allow North Korea to go nuclear is a major defeat for U.S. security."